Miss Buncle Married (29 page)

Jerry was quite breathless after all this. She stopped talking, and ran her fingers through her hair. It had been a tremendous speech, and the making of it had cleared her own mind, and removed any doubt that might have lingered in it as to the desirability of the legacy which she had missed through her marriage. She felt much better now, clear, and sane, and practical.

“Well,” she said, smiling up at Barbara. “What do you think of all that?”

“It's quite true,” said Barbara slowly, ridding herself with some difficulty of the illusion that riches and happiness go hand in hand.

“Of course it's true,” said Jerry confidently. “I see that now even more clearly than I did before—so, now, the only thing to do is to get hold of Mr. Tupper and tell him that I'm married.”

“Yes, I suppose we had better,” agreed Barbara, still a little reluctant at the thought of all that Jerry was losing.

“I suppose you're quite sure it
was
in the will—about me only getting Chevis Place if I wasn't married,” inquired Jerry anxiously.

“Quite sure,” said Barbara. “It struck me as so
odd
that I read that bit twice—to make sure. But, of course, it might have been changed afterward. Didn't Mr. Tupper say anything about it?”

“No—but, of course, he never thought for a minute that I was married,” Jerry reminded her. “How could he? I mean I don't
look
married yet, do I?”

Barbara looked at her friend seriously. “No, you don't,” she agreed. “You look far too young, and the ink on your nose makes you look even younger, somehow.”

Jerry laughed. “I don't know why it is I always get inky when I write letters—I always do.” She got up and went to a little gilt mirror which hung on the wall, and began to scrub her face with her handkerchief. “I'm not really worrying,” she continued. “I'm sure the will wasn't changed. It's just exactly the sort of thing that Aunt Matilda
would
put in her will. I'm not really worrying at all.”

Jerry got her hat, and they went down to Mr. Tupper's office in Barbara's car. They had thought, at first, of telephoning to him; but, as Jerry pointed out, somebody might overhear the conversation, and they were not ready to impart their secret to the world. It would be better to have everything perfectly clear before saying anything to anybody.

They caught Mr. Tupper leaving his office, and explained that they wished to speak to him in private. Mr. Tupper was very gracious and friendly; he led them into his office, and gave them chairs. Barbara had not been in the room since the day that she and Arthur had bought The Archway House—it seemed a very long time ago.

“Well, young lady,” said Mr. Tupper, smiling at Jerry in a kindly manner. “What can I do for you?”

Jerry explained. She told him everything except the way in which Barbara had become possessed of the information about the will. (They had decided that it was not necessary to disclose Mr. Tyler's mistake.) She told her story well, in her forceful colloquial way. Mr. Tupper listened without saying a word, but his face showed a good deal of what he was feeling; he was amazed, incredulous, and grieved in turn. In spite of Jerry's assurances that she was glad she had escaped the legacy, he did not believe it.

When Jerry had finished Mr. Tupper started. He pointed out the folly of secret marriages, and inveighed against the impatience of youth.

“If you had only
waited
,” said Mr. Tupper, almost wringing his hands at the folly and madness of it all, “if only you had waited a little. Ten days—just ten days.”

“But we didn't know it would only be ten days,” said Jerry, “and, besides, I'm glad we didn't, because I don't want Chevis Place.”

“Well, I must compliment you upon the way you are taking your disappointment,” said Mr. Tupper, searching for a gleam of comfort in the darkness of the sky. “It shows great strength of character, and—”

“No it doesn't,” Jerry told him earnestly. “I'm not disappointed—not a bit. I've told you what I feel about it, and I mean every word.”

She might have spared her breath. Mr. Tupper had been a lawyer for nearly forty years, and, all that time, he had been assimilating the idea that money is above all things the most desirable. Every client that darkened his doors, darkened them in the hopes that Mr. Tupper would be able to obtain more money for him, or the equivalent of more money. Subconsciously, Mr. Tupper envisaged the world—the whole civilized world—digging and burrowing, toiling and moiling, plotting and scheming to acquire this eminently desirable possession. It was not likely that a chit of a girl could upset forty years of thought in as many minutes.

“If you had allowed me to read you the will,” Mr. Tupper pointed out, “this mistake—this deplorable mistake—could not have occurred, and you would have been spared a great deal of suffering. It just shows that the legal manner of procedure should never—under any circumstances—be abrogated. I blame myself very much—very much indeed. I should have insisted upon reading you the will—I should have
insisted
upon it.”

Jerry was silent. She had told him her views and he did not believe her. She saw that it was useless to reiterate them.

“The estate now goes to Archie,” said Mr. Tupper, with a sigh, “and I, for one, am grieved (it is extremely unprofessional of me to make such a statement, but I have done so many unprofessional things today, that one more or less scarcely matters). Archie has not behaved in a proper manner, either before the death of her ladyship, or after. I am of the opinion that Archie is quite unfit to administer the estate in the way it should be administered.”

“Well, neither could I,” Jerry reminded him.

“We could have got somebody,” said Mr. Tupper. “In fact I had already thought of the very man to help us. A Major Macfarlane—an excellent fellow. He lost his arm in the War. He understands the details of running a big estate and could have taken the whole thing over—I intended to speak to you about it at the first opportunity because the estate needs a good deal of attention. Her ladyship kept everything in her own hands, and, since her illness, it has been extremely difficult—but, of course, it's no good now,” said Mr. Tupper sadly. “Heaven alone knows what Archie will make of it.”

“Archie will be all right,” said Jerry, trying to make her voice sound confident and assured.

“Well, it can't be helped,” said Mr. Tupper. “But I must say I feel that if her ladyship had known that there was any chance of Archie inheriting, she would have made different arrangements. She was not at all pleased with the way Archie was behaving—far from it—far from it.”

“I don't agree with you at all,” Jerry exclaimed. “I think Archie
ought
to get it. He may have behaved badly, but Aunt Matilda let him think that he was her heir, and that wasn't fair—it wasn't a bit fair. And it was
because
he knew that all that money was coming to him that he was so extravagant. I know it was. And I'm quite sure,” she continued, searching for words to express her complicated feelings, “I'm quite sure that if Aunt Matilda had known I was married—or even engaged—she wouldn't have wanted
me
to have Chevis Place. And it would have been horrid to have it and to feel all the time that it wasn't what Aunt Matilda wanted. So, you see, I'm very glad that it's all turned out as it has.”

“You are taking the disappointment—the grievous disappointment—extremely well,” said Mr. Tupper solemnly.

The sixth of May was an important anniversary for Mr. and Mrs. Abbott—they had been married for two years. That it was also an important anniversary for more important people did not detract from its value in their eyes; on the contrary, they were delighted to share their anniversary with their king and queen.

“It gives you a kind of Special Feeling for them, doesn't it?” Barbara remarked, as she and Arthur faced each other across the breakfast table; and Arthur—who was in the midst of his matutinal bacon and eggs—agreed that it did.

“It makes you feel that they're Real People—just like you and me,” Barbara continued dreamily. “Perhaps, even now, they're having breakfast together—just like us, only grander, of course—and feeling happy and pleased, just like us.”

Arthur agreed again. It was quite possible, he reflected, that Their Majesties were breakfasting together—quite possible. The fact that he could not believe they ever did anything so mundane was probably due to his lack of imagination. He could not—by any manner or means—visualize the scene; but, no doubt, that was his misfortune since Barbara obviously could.

“Do you think His Majesty has his bacon and eggs in a gold dish?” inquired Barbara, with a faraway look in her eyes.

“No,” said Arthur promptly.

“Why not?”

“Because it wouldn't be nice. Bacon in a gold dish would be simply disgusting,” said Arthur with conviction, “and I'm sure His Majesty is far too sensible to have it.”

The Abbotts were breakfasting at a late hour, and in a leisurely manner, because they had decided not to go up to town and see the procession, but to reserve their energies for the bonfire and the fireworks which were due to take place in Chevis Park after dusk. Arthur was quite glad that they were not going to London to see the procession—quite glad but somewhat surprised. He had been sure that Barbara would want to see it; so sure, that he had taken tickets for seats in a stand in St. James's Street—Barbara always wanted to go everywhere and see everything—but Barbara had elected not to go. She had pointed out that it would be frightfully hot and tiring, and that they would be so exhausted when they returned that they would not enjoy the bonfire. It was quite true, of course, but, somehow or other, it did not
ring
true in Arthur's ears, and he could not help feeling, at the back of his mind, that there was another reason for Barbara's decision; a much more cogent reason; a reason that she had not explained. Arthur had no idea what the reason was—none at all—it was just a feeling he had.

The tickets were not wasted, of course, for Arthur presented them to Sam and Jerry—who were now known to be man and wife by everybody in Wandlebury, and who were living together at Ganthorne Lodge in a state of bliss—and Sam and Jerry had accepted the tickets with delight, and had promised to come and have dinner at The Archway House, and tell Uncle Arthur and Barbara “all about it.” Monkey had also been invited to dine, and, after dinner, the whole party would walk over to Chevis Place for the bonfire and other celebrations.

Arthur and Barbara spent a quiet morning in the garden. It was beautiful. The weather was perfect—real Jubilee weather—and the garden was gay with spring flowers, and joyous with the song of birds. Arthur and Barbara sat in deck chairs, in the shadow of a huge beech tree, and talked and read in a desultory manner. The afternoon, though equally fine, was not so quiet, for all Wandlebury had been to town and seen the procession in the morning, and all Wandlebury decided to visit the Abbotts in the afternoon and tell them all that they had missed. By dinnertime the Abbotts had heard so much about the procession that they felt exactly as if they had seen it—and almost as tired. They knew exactly who was in every carriage and what they had worn, how gracious and regal Their Majesties had appeared and how sweet and pretty the Duchesses of York and Kent. They knew all about the immense crowds—so thick that you could have walked on their shoulders over half London. They knew all about the blocked roads and the gaily decorated streets. Even the ceremony in the abbey was no closed book to them, for Sir Lucian Agnew had been there, and came in to tea at The Archway House on purpose to tell the Abbotts about it. He had already composed a poem on the subject, and it needed very little persuasion on Barbara's part to induce him to recite it to them over the teacups.

Monkey Wrench and the young Abbotts came to dinner as had been arranged. Sam and Jerry were full of all they had seen and done, but they had not much opportunity of telling the others of their experiences. For one thing Arthur and Barbara were already well versed in the day's events, and were even slightly bored with the subject; and, for another, Monkey Wrench had so much to say that it was difficult for anyone else to get a word in edgeways. Monkey dominated the dinner table—Barbara had never heard him talk so much—and his conversation was entirely concerned with the Wandlebury Bonfire.

The Wandlebury Bonfire was Monkey's obsession. Archie Cobbe had given the making of it into Monkey's hands, and had allowed him to construct it on a small eminence in Chevis Park known locally as the Beacon Hill. Monkey had taken his responsibility as the designer of the Wandlebury Bonfire in no frivolous spirit; he had determined that it should be as good as, if not better than any bonfire in the British Isles. He had gone to work in a scientific manner, had ransacked the old library at Chevis Place for information as to how a bonfire should be built, and had amassed a considerable number of interesting and relevant facts about bonfires and beacons during his research.

Barbara was delighted that Monkey had the bonfire to occupy his mind. It had been an excellent idea of Archie's to entrust him with it. After the death of Lady Chevis Cobbe, Monkey had been wretched and miserable, for he hated losing a patient at any time, and her ladyship had been so ill (and so exacting) for so long, that when she departed this life and had no more need of his services, he felt that there was nothing left for him to do. If there had been an epidemic of influenza—or even of chicken pox—in Wandlebury the doctor would not have missed his august patient to anything like the same extent (for he would have had no time to grieve, and mope, and review the case for any possible mistake or omission he might have made in dealing with it), but the Wandleburians were a healthy community, and the weather had been so glorious that even chronic invalids and dyed-in-the-wool hypochondriacs had pulled up their socks—so to speak—and had been so busy decorating their houses with bunting, and making arrangements to see the procession, that they had no time to ring up Dr. Wrench and tell him about their pains.

It was for these reasons that the bonfire was such a godsend to Monkey; and Monkey had thrown himself into its preparation with such vim and vigor that he had almost forgotten that he was a doctor and had become, for the time being, a sort of modern Guy Fawkes.

“In the old days,” said Monkey seriously, “everybody knew the right way to construct a bonfire—or a beacon. It was necessary that they should, for it was the means of communication in times of danger (take for instance the bonfires which were lighted to warn England of the approach of the Armada, and those prepared as signals of alarm in the time of Napoleon Bonaparte). Bonfires in those days were not only lighted on occasions of national rejoicings. But, now, nobody knows much about them—the oldest man in the world is too young—isn't that queer? I'm sure that a great many bonfires which have been erected for tonight's celebrations will either flare up and burn themselves to ashes in an hour, or else they'll smolder and go out. Now my bonfire,” said Monkey earnestly, “is a rightly constructed bonfire. It will burn from the top, of course, and will burn for hours—flames and smoke,” said Monkey, “tar barrels and hempen rope.” He stacked his knives and forks to demonstrate the correct and incorrect manner of laying the wood, and used Arthur's silver table-napkin ring to demonstrate the correct position of the essential barrel of tar; he commended the Boy Scouts who had aided him in his task and Archie Cobbe for the public-spirited way in which he had given wood and tar and had lent carts for the conveyance of the same. “The site is ideal, of course,” he continued. “Simply couldn't be better. It has obviously been used for beacons and bonfires in the past—hence its name, the Beacon Hill. Personally I shouldn't be surprised if the hill was used for fires of alarm in the Druids' time,” said Monkey. “In the time of the Roman occupation,” continued Monkey. “All down the centuries.”

From the particular, he diverged to the general; he gave them a history of bonfires and the occasions upon which they had been used. He explained that the name was derived from “bone-fire” and that it had originally been a fire of bones. Other authorities—so Monkey said—had declared that the name was derived from “boon-fire,” the suggestion being that all the landowners in the neighborhood contributed material for the fire, as a gift to propitiate some deity, or in obedience to some superstition.

Barbara loved bonfires, but even she had had enough of the subject by the time that dinner was finished. She was quite glad when Monkey rose and said that he really must go.

“Just in case of anything,” said Monkey, anxiously. “It would be so awful if anything went wrong
now.
I'll see you later,” he added. “Don't be late, will you?”

“No, of course not,” Barbara assured him.

“It will be worth seeing,” said Monkey. “I can promise you that. There may be
bigger
bonfires in the country tonight, but there will be no
better
bonfire than mine,” he added with supreme confidence.

***

It was a glorious evening, still and warm. The sun sank slowly as if it were reluctant to depart; as if it were reluctant to look its last upon the day of rejoicing, reluctant to look its last upon the flags, the streamers, the gay decorations, and the happy throng of holidaymakers, upon whom it had smiled for so many crowded hours.

The Abbotts walked over to Chevis Place, for there was no need to hurry, the bonfire would not be lighted until dusk. The younger couple walked in front, and the older couple some yards behind.

“How happy they are!” Barbara remarked.

“No happier than we,” declared Arthur, squeezing the hand that was tucked inside his arm.

Barbara returned the pressure. “It's turned out all right after all,” she said contentedly. “Things usually do, somehow. You worry and fuss and try to make things go the way you think they should, and then you find that the other way was best. I'm going to try not to worry about things anymore.”

Arthur thought this was an excellent plan, but he was doubtful whether Barbara would be able to carry it out. Her disposition was so benevolent that she could not bear to see things going awry. She loved putting her fingers into other people's pies, and improving them (a good many people had reason to thank Barbara for the way she had improved their pies). The pies—as Barbara had indicated—rarely turned out quite as she had hoped or expected, but they were usually satisfactory. Barbara had had her fingers in a great many pies in Silverstream, and had improved them all—though not always in the way she had intended—and the Wandlebury pie was a success, too—so Arthur reflected—for Sam and Jerry were undoubtedly happier and more useful at Ganthorne Lodge than they would have been at Chevis Place, and Archie Cobbe had got what he had been wanting for years.

As they neared Chevis Place they found streams of cars and pedestrians converging from all directions; everybody for miles round Wandlebury had heard about the wonderful bonfire, and had decided to be there and see it alight.

The site chosen for the bonfire was—as Monkey had said—an ideal site. It was a flat-topped hill, covered with heather and boulders, about a quarter of a mile from the house. From here a fine view of the surrounding country could be obtained, and, incidentally, the surrounding country could obtain a fine view of the bonfire. The Abbotts were early on the scene, and were able to secure a good position on a pile of boulders. Arthur spread a rug over the boulders and they all sat down. Before them towered the dark mass of the bonfire, with trickles of black tar seeping out between the carefully packed wood. Monkey was hurrying about, full of last-minute instructions to his assistants. A donkey appeared with a huge crate of fireworks on its back, and the crate was unloaded by the Boy Scouts and secreted behind a rock. People were arriving fast by this time; groups formed and reformed. There was talk and laughter as friends met and recounted their experiences of the morning.

“There's Mrs. Sittingbourne!” exclaimed Arthur suddenly—he had almost forgotten what her real name was, for Barbara's choice seemed to suit her so much better.

“Where?” demanded Barbara eagerly. “Oh yes, I see her now. Oh dear, I
am
so glad she's better.”

“Monkey says it wasn't appendicitis after all.”

“I never thought it was.”

“Would you like to go and talk to her?” Arthur asked.

“No,” replied Barbara firmly. “No, let's just stay where we are—I'm enjoying it all frightfully.”

Arthur was surprised. Barbara had been so odd, so mysterious, over Mrs. Dance's sudden indisposition that he had been quite worried over it. He had never succeeded in getting to the bottom of that queer faint turn that had assailed Barbara when she heard that Mrs. Dance (or Mrs. Sittingbourne) was ill. It was so unlike Barbara to be mysterious. Arthur turned the whole thing over in his mind (his eyes fixed upon the good lady's toothy smile and predatory expression, as she pursued various people that she knew and engaged them in conversation). I can't believe that Barbara is really so very fond of her, he thought, she isn't Barbara's style at all. If Barbara likes her so much why doesn't she see the good lady more often? And if Barbara doesn't like her much, why was she so upset to hear she was ill?